Excellent behavior of coatings on 304 stainless steel by efficient low temperature plasma titanium-nitriding

Abstract

In order to improve the properties of 304 austenitic stainless steel, efficient low temperature plasma titanium-nitriding (LPNTi) was primarily developed at 420 °C for 4 h. The results show that comparing with traditional low temperature plasma nitriding (LPN), the surface hardness is dramatically enhanced from 978 HV0.025 to 1300 HV0.025, the wear resistance is significantly improved, with much narrower and shallower wear marks, the friction coefficient decreasing from 0.96 to 0.42, the wear rate decreasing from 1.7 mg/cm2 to 0.6 mg/cm2. Meanwhile, the process efficiency is greatly improved as well, with the nitrided layer thickness increasing from 11.37 μm to 48.32 μm, more than 4 times comparing with LPN.